19-year-old COZY K packages his latest work in a glorious 5 track EP. With “To Be Honest”, the Tbilisi-based rapper offers listeners clear access to his stream of consciousness — as long as they’re ready for the sensory overload it might inflict.
Track by track, COZY K exhibits a sense of play, taking liberty in directing our perceptions of reality. One bar establishes a concrete form; the next renders it abstract with surreal imagery.
‘The Depth’ opens the EP in a reflective light, with the rapper’s feet seemingly still on the ground, though he’s quick to hint at the otherworldly threads that follow. He invites himself into the listener’s subconscious with the titular track, parading the mind with vivid, often contradictory landscapes. The ensuing parade is relentless and impossibly mobile. As the lo-fi guitar strums of ‘Subtle Loneliness’ start playing, COZY K produces a soft landing for us to exit with.
Like a dream, once this experience is over, it’s hard to recall the plains that the young rapper laid out. Thankfully, we can jump back in by pressing Replay.
At its core, “To Be Honest” expands on the intangible aura the artist sees hanging over his native city of Tbilisi. True to the EP’s title — and despite the layers of abstraction looming overhead — Cozy K delivers pure honesty here. He’s telling the story of what he sees in his world, both at the surface level and beyond it. His truth is wrapped in an innate gift of flow, laid over a warbled range of cosmic sounds.